Exit Planning
Your exit should be the culmination of your success, not a scramble.
With Opus Encore, we help you prepare early, strengthen your business, and create the freedom and legacy you've earned — with a plan that starts three to five years before the moment you intend to sell.
What Opus Encore covers
Exiting your business is the biggest financial transaction you'll ever make. Most business owners leave money on the table — not because they didn't have a good business, but because they didn't prepare early enough. Encore changes that.
We establish your exit timeline and build a structured roadmap towards it — identifying the key milestones, decisions, and actions required at each stage to maximise value and minimise tax.
Every quarter we conduct a detailed review of your business's financial health — assessing profitability, balance sheet strength, cash generation, and the metrics that buyers and investors scrutinise most closely.
Exit tax planning is a long game. We advise on Business Asset Disposal Relief, corporate restructuring, share option schemes, and the timing of distributions — all in the context of your planned exit route and timeline.
We identify what's suppressing your valuation and help you address it. Clean financial records, demonstrable recurring revenue, reduced owner-dependence, documented processes — the things buyers pay multiples for.
A named senior advisor engaged deeply in your business — available for board attendance, investor calls, due diligence support, and the confidential conversations that come with planning a major life event.
We introduce you to the right people at the right time — M&A solicitors, corporate finance brokers, wealth managers, and deal specialists — so you have the full team in place when you need it.
Why planning early makes the difference
Most business owners begin thinking about their exit when they're already ready to go. At that point, the tax planning window has largely closed, the valuation is fixed by whatever the trailing financials show, and any structural issues that would concern a buyer are already baked in. The deal you get is the deal you've already made — whether you know it or not.
Start three to five years out and the picture changes completely. You have time to optimise your corporate structure, clean up your shareholder register, evidence your recurring revenue, eliminate dependencies on key individuals, and ensure your financial information is investor-grade. Tax planning — particularly around Business Asset Disposal Relief — requires sustained, deliberate action years in advance.
The businesses that achieve the highest multiples aren't always the most profitable — they're the most prepared. Opus Encore gives you the roadmap and the team to become one of them.
Tax planning windows close
Many of the most valuable exit tax reliefs require sustained qualifying conditions. Leaving planning to the last year often means those windows have already closed.
Buyers pay for predictability
A business with three years of clean, consistent financial performance, strong recurring revenue, and no owner-dependence commands a materially higher multiple than one that looks good only in year one.
Due diligence takes time
Buyers will scrutinise your last three years of accounts, contracts, and records. Starting early means any issues are discovered and resolved by you — not uncovered as deal-breakers.
Succession needs a runway
Whether you're handing to family, a management team, or a buyer, reducing key-person dependency takes time. Encore helps you systematically build a business that survives and thrives without you.
Who it's for
Opus Encore is our most exclusive service and is offered by invitation. It is for established business owners who have built something of genuine value and are thinking seriously about how to realise that value — whether through a trade sale, management buyout, private equity transaction, or structured succession to family.
The ideal Encore client has a business generating meaningful profit, a defined exit horizon of three to ten years, and an understanding that the outcome they want requires deliberate preparation — not just a good business broker and some luck. They want an advisor who will be frank with them, challenge their assumptions, and hold them accountable to a plan.
If you think you may be at the right stage for Encore, reach out for a confidential conversation. We'll be honest about whether the timing is right and what the engagement would involve.
"I find the team to be extremely high quality and very responsive at implementing strategies and advice."
Carl Scourfield, Owner — Pied Bull Chester
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By invitation only — reach out for a confidential initial discussion.
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